New training building to boost firefighters' skills

By Diana Alba Soular/dalba@lcsun-news.com

Posted:
11/09/2012 04:50:22 PM MST

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First responders alongside city officials hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday morning for the Las Cruces Public Safety Training Facility on the West Mesa, near the Las Cruces International Airport. The four-story, 3,500 square-foot facility is about 85 percent complete and is equipped with two burn rooms, according to Lt. Adrian Arias, of the City of Las Cruces Fire Department.

LAS CRUCES — From a distance, the quirky-shaped building might appear to be an old-fashioned barn or perhaps a small industrial structure.

But it's nothing of the sort.

Rather, the four-story building that's gone up just next to the Las Cruces airport on the West Mesa is a state-of-the-art training facility for city firefighters.

City officials hosted a ribbon-cutting Friday for the all-metal, 3,500-square-foot building.

The building — and a series of burners and fake smoke — will eventually be used to simulate fires in homes and commercial structures, said Lt. Adrian Arias of the Las Cruces Fire Department.

"From a firefighter's standpoint, this is something we've never had," he said.

Home fires are among the most serious types of incidents, and, fortunately, they don't happen too often, Arias said. But because there aren't many blazes, firefighters' knowledge and skills can lapse. The new training facility will help to counter that, he said.

The total project cost is $1.5 million, city officials said.

Las Cruces police, too, will have access to the facility for tactics training, officials said.

The first floor of the building features a room that's lined with fire-retardant drywall. It's got a door and windows and soon will be outfitted with a natural gas-fueled burner system. The room could be used to simulate a blaze in a ground-floor room of a home.

On the second floor is a smaller bedroom-sized space, also lined with fire-retardant drywall.

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Nearby, a short hallway will give firefighters practice maneuvering fire hoses around sharp corners. It opens into another larger room. There, a small wall stands. Firefighters will tear through it.

"They have to be able to break through a typical residential wall," Arias said.

The third floor of the Las Cruces Public Safety Training Facility features a pitched roof and looks like the crawl space in an attic. And the fourth floor provides the height needed to simulate a commercial structure.

A series of pipes throughout the building are capable of filling it with fake smoke — the kind used in rock concerts. One challenge of fighting real fires is coping with constant, vision-clouding smoke, Arias said.

Walls throughout the building are made of wavy metal, a design that allows water from firehoses to run off freely.

The facility, because it is centrally located in Doña Ana County, eventually could be used by other agencies, such Hatch and Sunland Park.

Doña Ana County Fire Marshal Robert Monsivaiz said the county is working to build a similar fire training facility of its own on Portland Drive in Las Cruces. But the more training possibilities that are available, the better, Monsivaiz said.

"It's going to assist us in bringing training to some of our folks," said Monsivaiz, who attended the city's ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Officials have also said the city of Las Cruces' project could help lead to a better ISO rating, which in turn could lead to lower insurance rates for businesses in the nearby industrial park. That also could help attract new companies to the area, they said.

Arias said the city's building is about 85 percent finished. The burning equipment still must be installed. Also, he said, a number of outside "props," such as a vehicle and a dumpster, must be installed to practice quenching blazes in those types of objects.

The city Fire Department is hoping the project will be finished entirely by March or April of 2012, when its next academy is slated to begin.

Diana Alba Soular can be reached at (575) 541-5443; follow her on Twitter @AlbaSoular